


braced on the edge of a fight that refuses to start

by eneiryu



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 10:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15629217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eneiryu/pseuds/eneiryu
Summary: Liam and Theo, after the hospital. Contrary to their combined life experiences so far, sometimes things really can be easy.





	braced on the edge of a fight that refuses to start

Theo follows Liam back to Scott’s house after the showdown at the hospital less out of any conscious decision-making — though in hindsight he’s not sure what the hell else he would have done — and more because following Liam around has, at this point, become habit. Stuck in the backseat of Ms. McCall’s car, squeezed in with Corey and Mason, he keeps glancing down at his hands, turning them over and over as he looks for any trace, any remnant of the black veins that had streaked up his wrists not twenty minutes ago. Liam is in front of him in the passenger seat, practically bouncing from the steadily-fading adrenaline, which makes his attempts to surreptitiously check up on Theo in the rearview mirror every few seconds more laughable than anything else.

Eventually, tired of the image of Gabe’s twisted expression going slack as Theo took his pain and of Liam’s searching look and chewed-up lips, Theo deliberately jams his knee into the back of Liam’s seat. Liam jerks and snaps out an irritated  _hey!_ , but when he next meets Theo’s eyes in the rearview, there’s a hint of a smile in the corners of his lips. His traitorous mouth about to do the same, Theo jerks his head to look quickly out of the window before Liam can notice and think he’s won something.

He doesn’t realize he’s dozed off until later, when a touch on his shoulder snaps him to full awareness with a sickening jolt. He’s lashing out even as he registers that the touch was Liam, kneeling backwards on the front seat with one arm extended, car engine off and cab empty but for the two of them.

Liam yanks his arm back out of range of Theo’s clawed swipe with maybe half an inch to spare, wincing, “Sorry, that was dumb.”

Theo doesn’t answer, instead focused on slowing his racing heartbeat, on urging his fangs and claws to retract. His hands are shaking from the sudden flood of adrenaline and he clenches them, hard, in a half-conscious and desperate bid to make them stop. He’s so focused on that one thought —  _stop shaking_  — that he barely notices when his claws pierce his palms.

“Theo,” Liam murmurs his name this time, question and warning both, before he reaches out.

Theo can feel his shoulders ratcheting up by his ears as he waits for the contact, but he doesn’t move for the taffy-stretched seconds it takes Liam to put his hand on his shoulder. He keeps his eyes glued to his balled-up fists instead, watching with morbid fascination as blood begins to well up between his fingers. But when Liam starts to slide tentative fingers down his arm, his breath catches and his eyes squeeze shut. 

When he reaches Theo’s wrists, Liam tugs gently until Theo releases just enough of the tension in his arms to allow Liam to pull his hands out of his lap and into the cradle of Liam’s palms. Theo can’t see Liam’s expression, his eyes still tightly closed, but he finds himself straining to decipher some clue to Liam’s thoughts from the sound of his heartbeat and the tang of his scent, but it’s a lost cause; the first is steady and telling no tales and the second is buried under sweat and dirt and dried blood.

He comes back to himself to Liam tapping his fingers thoughtfully against the backs of hands, apparently considering the problem of Theo’s closed fists. Theo can tell when he comes to a decision, can feel it in the shift of muscle as Liam slowly, carefully, starts to dig the tip of his finger into the space between Theo’s index finger and his palm until he can peel the finger back, the claw sliding free of Theo’s flesh with a sickening wet  _snick_. 

Saliva floods Theo’s mouth at the sound — at the visceral sense memories it evokes — but he swallows it back down, resists the urge to undo Liam’s work by clenching his hands right back up. Instead, he focuses on the feel of Liam’s hands on his as Liam works one finger after another free, as Liam smoothes his thumb over each revealed wound in what is almost certainly an unconscious gesture. His heartbeat starting to settle and some of the directionless panic beginning to fade, Theo relaxes his grip a little more; he doesn’t open his palms, but when Liam reaches the next finger he straightens it before Liam can pry it loose. Liam murmurs something appreciatively at that and gives his hands a gentle squeeze, and something comes loose in Theo’s chest. Caught off-guard by the sensation, he doesn’t realize that he’s started breathing in-sync with Liam until Liam’s rhythm stutters on a soft, satisfied exhale.

Theo opens his eyes and looks down at his hands, both now splayed wide from Liam’s work and already healed under the wet sheen of blood. Jaw working, Theo flexes his stiff fingers a few times in the cradle of Liam’s palms — Liam’s hands still cupped around his — and then, before he can stifle the urge, darts a quick look up at Liam. The expression on Liam’s face as he catches Theo looking goes blown open, wounded somehow, the insanity of the day destroying the last of his poker face, maybe. Liam hesitates visibly and then opens his mouth to speak, but it’s the wet sound of it that hits Theo like a punch, his gut tightening, his body leaning forward without his permission.

But Liam doesn’t get the chance to say whatever it was. Mason materializes seemingly out of thin air and raps on the passenger window, causing them both to jump and Liam to release Theo’s hands in surprise. Theo turns to glare at Mason but Liam’s already flushing, one hand going behind his head to scratch awkwardly at the back of his neck as he nods at his friend;  _yeah, okay, we’re coming in_. He glances back at Theo and gives him another of those half-smiles from earlier, then twists around to grab the door handle and open it, stepping out into the night. 

The car rocks with a dull  _clunk_  when Liam shuts the door and Theo takes a moment to be alone in the silence of the empty space. Then he exhales harshly and steps out of the car to follow Liam and Mason inside.

\---

There are about seventy unread messages waiting on Theo’s phone when he finally remembers to check it, all from the pack’s group text. He scrolls through them as he sits at the McCall kitchen table and waits for his turn to raid Ms. McCall’s stash of spare hoodies and sweatpants for clothes not ripped or covered in bloodstains and other bodily fluids. 

Most of them are variations on pack members sounding off:  _I’m alive_ ,  _we’re alive_ ,  _this ally is_ ,  _this enemy isn’t_. Mason had apparently taken the initiative for the members of the pack who’d been at the hospital, checking in for them while Liam and Theo were still out in the car. Theo brushes a finger over his name, Liam’s, Mason’s, Corey’s, Ms. McCall’s, stares at Mason’s  _all O.K._ for a long moment, then freezes when he gets to Mason’s second message:  _Gabe killed, friendly fire_. 

Theo makes a face at that. He understands the information Mason’s trying to impart, but he’s not sure there was anything particularly  _friendly_  about Gabe’s hunter buddies firing on him. Before that thought can grow any additional teeth, though, Liam appears and derails it. He’s freshly clad in nondescript gray sweats that still smell like cheap plastic, one hand rubbing a towel over his head. 

Liam catches Theo looking at his wet hair and grimaces, explains, “I could practically hear myself crunching every time I moved from all the dried blood.”

“I figured you’d just realized you smelled,” Theo retorts, but it’s a half-assed effort at best; no sting. 

Liam looks at him a moment, apparently weighing whether to respond to his tone or his words. Theo can see the exact moment he decides to go with tone; Liam visibly lets the words go and comes to flop down in a chair beside Theo, nodding at the phone still in his hand, “What’s the final score?”

Theo slides it over to him instead of responding, too tired to read Liam the full chain. He props his head on one fist and watches Liam’s expressions as he reads each message in turn, trying to pair one to the other. A wide grin for the steady proof-of-life notes. A vicious smile for Argent’s description of the carnage that was Gerard and Kate’s last confrontation. What starts as a triumphant smirk and twists into a disappointed sneer is almost definitely related to Scott’s blunt two-word missive about Monroe’s escape. 

Theo straightens automatically at that last one, instinct and habit kicking in as Liam’s newly-clean scent goes sour with anger, but the moment passes almost as soon as it begins; Liam takes a deep breath through his nose and exhales it, his scent evening out as he does.

Seemingly mindful of his recent mood swing, Liam grimaces and gently sets Theo’s phone on the table, then melts into the uncomfortable wooden back of his seat with a drawn-out sigh, “Scott and the rest of the pack are coming, should all be here within the next hour.”

Theo nods mutely; he’d already read that. He leans back in his chair, too, the tension in his own body melting some. The silence that settles over the dimly-lit kitchen is comfortable, he and Liam both too tired to do much more than stare blankly at the opposite wall. 

If he concentrates, Theo can hear the muted sounds of Corey and Mason banging around in the living room and Ms. McCall’s muffled phone conversation with — Argent, Theo thinks? — upstairs. Something about those shockingly normal, domestic sounds soothe the last ragged edges of Theo’s awareness, and he can feel it as his eyelids grow heavy. Even the thought of how irritated he’s going to be with himself when he wakes up stiff, bloody, and still wearing clothes shredded from bullet holes isn’t enough to keep them open.

When he jolts awake only a few minutes later, some stray noise knocking him back to consciousness, he realizes that he’s tilted his head against the back of his chair to face Liam, and that Liam has rolled his head back to mirror his posture. They blink at each other for a long moment — Liam wasn’t asleep, apparently, which possibly means that he’s been watching Theo doze like some kind of creep — and Theo flashes back to Liam’s aborted attempt to say something back in the car, has to stifle an uncharacteristic shiver at the sense memory of Liam’s fingers wrapped around his. Liam’s eyes are running over his face and now it’s Theo who feels blown open, wounded, poker face shredded, Liam’s expression the one that’s settled and sure and it’s such a controversion of their usual roles — a reverse of the rightful order of things — that Theo feels a spike of something like fear shock through his system.

The screech Theo’s chair makes as he stands abruptly causes both of them to jump, though Theo at least hides his reaction better than Liam, who bangs his legs on the underside of the table and swears. Theo jerks his head to the side to avoid the confused expression that he  _knows_  Liam is wearing and plucks at his destroyed shirt, sensing more than seeing Liam’s eyes follow the motion.

“I should go clean up,” He explains, the excuse sounding weak even to his own ears but Liam just nods, Theo catching the movement out of the corner of his eye. 

“Right,” Liam agrees, “Sure.”

Theo hesitates for a moment longer, unsure what exactly he’s waiting  _for_ , and then spins on his heels and heads for the stairs, feeling Liam’s gaze burning between his shoulder blades as he goes. 

\---

When he steps out of the shower twenty minutes later — because Liam was right,  _crunching_  was exactly the word for how Theo felt every time he moved — Theo feels slightly more calm, though if he thinks too hard about what happened — or didn’t — with Liam back in the kitchen, back in the car, he can feel his heartbeat start to kick back up. Gritting his teeth and shoving both memories to the side, he finds himself distracted with how the whole house now smells like cheap processed food, like burnt cheese and grease. He wrinkles his nose at the smell but his stomach is apparently less refined; it growls loudly. Rolling his eyes, Theo finishes ripping the plastic off of the sweatshirt and sweatpants he’d claimed and yanks them both on.

He heads for the kitchen at a slow jog, automatically cataloging sounds and smells as he goes. Liam’s is the first he tags, though Theo cycles quickly onward, noting Mason’s, Corey’s, Ms. McCall’s. Focusing, he concludes that the house has gained only one additional heartbeat since the time he stepped into the shower — Argent’s, beating steadily from the kitchen from where he’s talking quietly to Ms. McCall — which means the rest of the pack is still in route. 

Theo slows as he passes the living room, eyes flicking over its various occupants. Corey and Mason are squeezed into the single loveseat and are, to judge from their mingled scents and slow, even heartbeats, thoroughly passed out. Liam is sat on one side of the couch, mouth open and head tilted back as he snores quietly, an empty, grease-streaked plate on his lap. Theo smirks but feels the last of the tension leave his gut at the sight. It’s half a thought, less, that has him reaching out to run his fingers lightly across the couch just a few inches from Liam’s outstretched arm as continues on to the kitchen. 

Ms. McCall and Argent look up as Theo enters and he jerks to an instinctual stop, wary, the tension returning with a snap. He waits, but in the end the confrontation is the very definition of anti-climatic; Argent watches him for a long moment, then jerks a nod in his direction before turning back to Ms. McCall;  _acknowledged, dismissed_. Ms. McCall for her part quirks a knowing smile at him and tilts her head towards a plate of pizza rolls sitting next to a haphazardly-stacked pile of baking sheets on one counter.

“Liam saved those for you,” She says, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as her voice cracks on a wide yawn halfway through. She shakes her head and blinks a few times, then grins, “I thought for a moment fangs were actually going to be required to fight Mason off of them.”

She gives him one last smile and then turns her attention back to Argent. Theo watches them for a few moments, a little bemused at being so casually dismissed. He knows time tends to work kind of strangely in Beacon Hills, but it really wasn’t all that long ago that  _Theo_  was the big bad villain forcing Scott’s pack to huddle in Ms. McCall’s kitchen to lick their wounds. 

After a few more moments of his being pointedly ignored, though, Theo thinks to himself  _gift horses,_ and shifts carefully out of the defensive position he’d automatically slid into. He pads forward to retrieve the plate Ms. McCall had indicated, stacked high with pizza rolls, then finds himself stopping again. Theo stares down at them for a second, ears automatically, instinctually searching out the familiar rhythm of Liam’s heartbeat in the next room, the soft sounds he makes as he sleeps. He snaps back to himself when Ms. McCall says his name and Theo grimaces, ignoring the undercurrent of amusement coloring her tone as he turns and heads back to the living room.

The pile of Corey-and-Mason on the loveseat hasn’t shifted since he last saw it, and Liam is still snoring away on the couch. Theo hesitates, the brutally rational part of his mind — the one that once managed to tear this pack apart, if only temporarily — marks the pile of miscellaneous blankets, quilts, and pillows shoved in the corner of the room and the empty stretch of floor on the other side of the coffee table, but his body is already padding quietly over to the free stretch of couch on Liam’s other side. 

Theo lowers himself and his plate down carefully, trying to shift the couch as little as possible as he sits. Liam grunts a bit but doesn’t do much more than burrow further into the cushions, the plate on his knees wobbling precariously. Rolling his eyes, Theo reaches over to slide it gently out from underneath Liam’s slack arm before his search for a comfortable sleeping pose — unlikely, what with him sitting upright on a couch — can result in it falling to the floor. Once successfully retrieved, Theo stacks it under his own and then settles back and starts to pop pizza rolls into his mouth one by one. 

Closing his eyes as he chews, the calm of the house settling over him, Theo sharpens his senses until he can start to tease apart the individual sounds and smells around him. It’s an old habit he developed, another way of mastering his environment so that he could better make use of it, and for a moment Theo falters, the sharp edges of that thought catching at the quiet in his chest. Then Liam snorts and wiggles beside him, one of his legs shifting to press hard against the side of Theo’s thigh for just a moment before he relaxes back. The contact jerks Theo out of his thoughts and he blinks open his eyes, looks down at where Liam’s knee is still close enough to him to radiate warmth. 

Back at full awareness and groping for a distraction that isn’t Liam, since that seems to have taken on a dangerous edge tonight, Theo reaches for another pizza roll only to realize that his plate is empty. He stares at it for a beat, baffled, then leans forward after a moment to set both his plate and Liam’s on the coffee table. As he settles back into the cushions, the shift of his weight causes Liam to tilt towards him slightly, his shoulder now pressed firmly against Theo’s. 

Theo tilts his head to look at him, fingers already twitching to push him gently off, but in the end he doesn’t, just tucks his hands underneath his biceps and presses more firmly against Liam’s shoulder against his own, eyes sliding shut.

\---

He jerks awake what turns out to be several hours later with a sharp gasp, the lingering remnants of his nightmare still clinging to his mind as his chest heaves and his eyes flare gold, instincts igniting as he strains to hear guns cocking, or crossbow bolts whistling through the air, or — and here his breath catches — the primordial roar of the Anuk-Ite coming for them all. 

Beside him Liam huffs a complaint and twists to resettle himself in a new position against the corner of the couch, disturbed from where his face had been mashed against Theo’s shoulder. Theo jerks to look at him for a few long seconds, sleep-fogged brain struggling to separate out the dream from the quiet of the early morning. Even the sight of Liam drooling slightly isn’t enough to shake him free of his hyper-alert state, the nightmare coating every innocuous sound and smell with a sinister edge.

Gritting his teeth, Theo surges upright and heads for the bathroom on silent feet, ignoring the way that Liam whines out another unhappy protest as he’s once again jostled. He can feel instincts long-honed trying to tell him about changes to the silence since he fell asleep, to the scent of cheap food that’s now been replaced by something warmer and deeper, but the block of ice tucked up hard under his ribs freezes them out. 

He makes it to the bathroom and goes to shut the door behind him, twisting at the last moment to keep it from slamming as the short walk helps to clear his head some. Sighing, he leaves it cracked, stopping to lean his forehead against it — just for a moment, just for a beat — before he shoves off of it and turns to face the sink, ignoring the light-switch to keep the small room dark. Wrapping his hands around either side of the counter, Theo leans forward and lets his head hang loose to try and stretch out the tension he can feel knotting the muscles of his neck and back. 

Then he just breathes.

It helps for a handful of seconds before the house groans under its own weight and Theo feels his head snap up, his pulse spike, the counter creaking in protest under the force of his grip. Theo lets go of it with a disgusted noise, jerking backwards as he’s caught by his reflection in the mirror in what little light manages to slip into the room. He snarls at his own hunted expression, tired and frustrated, thinking  _pathetic_ ; a chimera — the  _first_ chimera — kept awake by bad dreams.

Theo’s about to snarl again when he hears one of the floorboards outside the bathroom creak and he whips around to catch the door as someone pushes it gently open. Framed in the now-open doorway, Liam blinks at him, scent sleep-warm, bare toes curling against the cool of the wood floor. 

“Theo?” He murmurs, voice gravelly, and Theo bites back the urge to say something cutting, since Liam is  _staring right at him_ ; who else would it be? “What are you doing?”

_Hiding like a child from monsters under the bed_ , he thinks to himself viciously, but out loud he justs snaps, “Nothing, I’m fine.”

Liam just stares at him, and Theo doesn’t need to be a master manipulator to interpret his skeptical look. Blowing out a frustrated breath, Theo deflates and feels his shoulders slump, arms coming up to cross over his chest as he stands silently and lets Liam study him, too tired to do anything else.

“...okay,” Liam finally says, but instead of turning to go back to the living room, he reaches out a hand to snag the sleeve of Theo’s sweatshirt and tug, “You should come back to sleep, though. It’s like three in the morning.”

Theo frowns at him but is too surprised to do anything other than let himself be pulled gently from the bathroom and back towards the living room. He puts up with it until they reach the archway leading into the room, but then he stops short, legs refusing to move any further and his throat closing up. Liam tugs on Theo’s sleeve a few more times — confused and a little annoyed, if his scent is anything to go by — but he gives it up when it becomes clear that Theo isn’t moving. Instead he leans heavily against the wall, eyes going hooded as he waits for Theo to figure out whatever he needs to figure out. 

It’s the tableau that gets him, the unconscious way that the McCall pack has arranged themselves —  _the McCall Pack_ _In_ _Exhausted Victory_  — no one member more than a few feet from another. There are five empty bedrooms in this house but Corey and Mason are still wedged together on the loveseat, Scott and Malia curled together on the other end of the couch from where he and Liam had been until just recently. Across from them, in the previously-empty space between the coffee table and the TV, there’s now a too-small air mattress, Stiles lying in between Lydia and Derek, his arm around her waist and her head tucked under chin, Derek’s chest pressed to Stiles’ back and his arm thrown over them both. 

_This is a pack_ , Theo finds himself thinking blankly,  _This_ _is a real pack._

Liam must tag the sudden change in his scent because he stirs, reaches out for Theo again, though this time he gets a fistful of the hem of Theo’s sweatshirt rather than his sleeve. Theo stares at him, seeing out of the corner of his eye the empty space on the couch just perfectly sized for Liam to slot back into, to take his place, and then he shakes his head and takes a half step back. 

“I should go,” He says, too loud, then winces and automatically stretches out his hearing to check if his outburst had disturbed any of the sleeping pack members; feels a too-big wave of relief when it appears it hadn’t.

Liam’s fully awake now, fingers twisting harder in Theo’s hem like a physical rejection of his words, knuckles digging in to Theo’s stomach, “What? What are talking about?”

But Theo’s on a roll now, blankness giving way to a kind of wide-eyed mania as the truth of his earlier thought repeats,  _this is a real pack_ , his stomach clenching painfully at the thought. He tries to take another step back but is brought up short by Liam’s unyielding grip, and so he stops, braces himself for the coming conversation. 

“The danger’s over,” He hisses, frustrated and a little sick that he’s going to have to put it into words for Liam, “The Anuk-Ite is dead, Monroe and her hunters are on the run. The pack is safe. You don’t—” 

_Need me anymore_. He was going to finish that sentence with the words  _need me anymore_ , but his throat closes around them before he can. He looks away from Liam’s furrowed brow, at his mouth parted slightly in confusion, teeth gritting. He thinks about telling Liam about how Scott and the other members of his pack may have tolerated Theo’s presence during the fiasco with the Wild Hunt, and how they may have even welcomed the extra set of claws during their fight with Monroe and the Anuk-Ite, but that doesn’t make Theo  _pack_. He keeps his jaw clamped shut instead, waiting for that realization to make it through Liam’s thick skull, for Liam’s hand to drop away from his sweatshirt as he accepts what Theo already has. 

He’s so focused on sensing the exact moment that Liam releases him so he can bolt that the feeling of Liam’s other hand coming up to join his first, fingers brushing Theo’s bare skin from where his hem is already pulled taut, makes him jump. His eyes snap open and he stares at Liam, who takes a small step forward until he’s in Theo’s space, until he can meet his eyes and use the hands he’s got wrapped in Theo’s sweatshirt to shake him gently, Theo’s hands coming up to counter-grab Liam’s elbows automatically at the movement. 

“Theo,” He murmurs firmly, eyes never leaving Theo’s, and Theo is caught by the way he seems almost alpha-like in his intensity, “Don’t be an idiot.”

Then Liam sleepily beams at Theo and wobbles a little on his heels, apparently thrilled with himself, and the aura of solemnity falls away until Liam is just Liam again. Theo blinks at him, thrown, but just as he’s about to reply with something cutting, something about how maybe hot-headed betas with the strategic planning skills of a rock shouldn’t be casting aspersions, his senses peg someone stirring in the living room and his head whips around to look, Liam’s doing the same. 

It’s Scott, eyes hooded but alert as he studies the two of them. Theo swallows, unable to look away, but growing more and more uncomfortable under the scrutiny as he imagines what Scott’s seeing, what he’s thinking, Liam and Theo close enough to share breath and Liam’s fingers still tangled in Theo’s sweatshirt, Theo’s hands still cupping Liam’s elbows. Just as he’s about to do something to break the stalemate, knock Liam’s hands off his shirt, maybe, Scott closes his eyes briefly. When they open a half-second later, they’re flared red. 

“Theo,” Scott says, and this time there really is alpha-force behind his name, “Don’t be an idiot.”

Then he yawns, moment breaking, and closes his eyes as he settles more firmly into the couch, hand stroking down Malia’s arm to soothe her as he does. Theo blinks, for the second time in less than six hours finding himself unceremoniously dismissed. He opens his mouth to say something, some of his earlier panic replaced with indignation, but he closes it again almost immediately, speechless. 

When he looks back at Liam, Liam smiles softly and presses the back of his knuckles firmly into Theo’s stomach, fingers still tangled in Theo’s sweatshirt, “Come back to sleep.” He repeats softly, grin going lopsided.

Theo doesn’t respond, can’t respond, just stares mutely at him, but this time when Liam tugs to lead him back to the couch, to the pack, he follows.

**Author's Note:**

> Edit to say: I have a tumblr now! If you liked, consider a [reblog](https://eneiryu.tumblr.com/post/182479677760/braced-on-the-edge-of-a-fight-that-refuses-to).


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